Talk:City17 Episode 1

Discussion

Note: keep all topics and articles in the this area so that it wont get confused with the MOD progress area.

Archiving??

little clenaup maybe? your pages getting pretty long with old news stuff :) --Angry Beaver 14:31, 22 Oct 2006 (PDT)

Hmm yeah i still would like to keep the entire log though however i will make an Archieve for the months.--Gear 17:47, 22 Oct 2006 (PDT)

Brightness

Funny. I'm watching the media now on a LCD-monitor and it's all much brighter then on my CRT. --dutchmega 03:09, 7 Sep 2006 (PDT)

Hmm, might simply have to do with the brightness of the monitors being differently tuned, but also LCD screens is known for having much better contrast between similar colors, yet perhaps this explains why the pictures are so dark: MrTwo has an LCD monitor. --Andreasen 09:33, 7 Sep 2006 (PDT)

Hi guys and yes thats true i have an LCD monitor displaying at 1420x which is widescreen. Oh thankyou Andreasen for letting me know about the talk page to keep everyone informed about the mod, so her by i will start the Progress area!

About the datacache error, have you checked the discussion on User_talk:Mdurand? --Andreasen 12:17, 7 Sep 2006 (PDT)

Light

Maybe a tip: I always like 1 dynamic light in the room, which would flicker a bit. Everything dark is not always fun. The player sometimes runs from 1 light to the another. --dutchmega

There are deffinitely lights that flicker quite a bit but the team chose not to put too much of that. It looks a bit funny in the map but theres about one or two thats there.---MrTwoVideoCards

It's dark

This is a talk page, so if I may cut in here: The two last of these three pictures are 95% black. Also, almost all players are aware that lack of detail can be covered up with darkness. That's the reason why dark maps are generally frowned upon, just so you know. --Andreasen 13:48, 9 Sep 2006 (PDT)

Yes im also quite well-aware of that. All though it is a dark Parking Lot the team is putting a ton of detail in it. I didnt mean for darkness to be an excuse for low detail i was just simply stating that dark covers up detail but the team didnt want to do that. Its dark but there is a LOT of detail hha maybe too much but so far the map runs very well and it doesn't go very slow either. Really it doesn't go slow at all. The average fps is 34 to 30 so thats quie well but that also because i haven't Visleafed everything yet by adding occluders and Hint brushs or even area portals.

It's weird.. It's not a zombie-mod but still so dark. Are you also going to use these maps in DM? Please note that is not meant bad.. we're just wondering why.. --dutchmega 14:01, 9 Sep 2006 (PDT)

Personally I have no problem with it, because you would probably still see the muzzle flashes of the Combine light up where they are, so it might be very effect-full. Zombies in darkness, on the other hand, could slow things down to a crawl. I just hope though, that he doesn't release the map as dark as his screenshots, because then the mod would be a LED monitor map only. He should probably adjust his brightness setting. --Andreasen 14:26, 9 Sep 2006 (PDT)

Haha yeah i know its a bit funny that ive been showing you dark screens however the begging og the MOD takes place at night however the rest of the MOD is morning and daytime and just a bit more night and thats it. Im sorry for making everything so dark. And by the way yes ther are Zombies in the area as the way there are in HL2 EP 1 but not a lot. So i promise you guys there will be deffinitely a lighter more well-lit map to play in.

Ideas

If anybody has any ideas or anything they would like to see in the game please tell! Just dont put nothing that would take months to make or anything that doesnt make sense. Thankyou.

Working together

How do you work together on the maps? Just plan like "you do that part, I do that one and you that other part"? --dutchmega 06:51, 24 Sep 2006 (PDT)

Actualy no its a bit different then that. Its a system we put together. What we do is pretty much talk about the geneal area and progress of the mod. After that we get a good heading of where we are going with the game. We pretty much all desing the maps but yet we stick to the story and dont stray off to far or anything.

Also i like to call it the "Team Lead Method"

Its where we all work in or on a certain map and change different aspects of it. One does the overall lighting. one on the enviroment, and one on the combat. Also any other area of that map is needed as well we will work on but its a odd process kind of. However we all head in a general direction to the same goal.

Afte thatn we decide what will go and stay of course and test different aspects of the game. Im lead level desing so i control what the final map will be but still i always ask the team does this look good and what your opion?

Also i like this method becaue we all desing the same thing. But with different point of views. Which is cool because then we can see he "that looks more realistic or maybe we should give more detal to this idea". Its not a compition to get their idea in the game but rather just different concept desings of the same object. Rather than one person coming up with all the ideas which is a bit limited.--Gear 13:49, 4 Oct 2006 (PDT)

MOD Progress

Log

Archeive August,2006 Archeive September,2006 Work began on April 15th, 2006.

• There is no current log from that date i officialy will start it from the begging of August due to thats the date where the team knows where officialy everything is going and where the MOD is heading in its general direction.

oct 3,2006 - Team

We are finnaly happy to say that the first three maps of CIty 17 are now finnaly in HDR. It took a while but weve just added effects and some of a few new things to HDR. Also we are working on a Advanced HDR page for the wiki but level design goes very well so far.

The forest area of City 17 is now being created and also concepted however we are probaly going out on location for that to get some reference pictures. Also since the player is a rebel we thought about bring back the buggy since in HL2 its carried by a Combine Dropship and whisked away to somewhere. Well it turns out that somewhere was the Trainstation so there will be some buggy riding in City 17. We are though working on this idea so you tell us what seems more "funner"for the player.

HDR screens of the existing Levels in City 17:

We put the screens on the main page of City 17 after all it does make more sense there.

oct 4,2006 - Neil

Today I will be working on props, just regular ones for the player to fling around. Most of the props in Half Life 2 require the Gravity Gun to pick up and since the player cant use that weapon we need more stuff to grab and throw like knives and such. Also since the grav gun can throw things at a high velocity they can damage foes. Like grabing a tire and launching it at a combine. It would kill him but since the player doesnt have the grav gun he cant do that so we will be making things that are sharp, able to throw at a high speed like a shovel or a shard of glass and maybe even other existing props from Half Life 2.

oct 9,2006 - Cory

Through the modding process ive learned quite a bit. Running and directing a team as well as mapping for the HL2 world it self. The Great thing about making a MOD for HL2 is there are so many options. Too many to count even. But as the self-replitation and continous work continues on City 17 things go even better! Im sad to report though that i might be updating this log a bit less and maybe only down to two or three times a week but thats due to the stage we are currently within at City 17. We have a bit more things greatly added up together so we'll be a bit more busy on the MOD. I would also like to say we are preparing it to release a short demo. haha it took a while with all that HDR settings and such that were added to the maps and also tons of coding for the new props that require HDR reflection and shine as well as good lighting portrals. This is a long process but it really depends on the size and complexity of the model.

so far im also making a gameplay video to showcase a bit of the stuff we will have in City 17.

Also we are heading into the ep 2 area. We stalled on that because we wantd to create a good map for the train ride plus the level would have to be long so it required a lot of drafting and planning to get it where it will look great in the game. We also moved up the buggie maps to after the train crash in the ep 2 area of the MOD. However the buggie thing is still a bit of a fact to workout due to the fact that the player will have no Gravity Gun to flip it back over if it lands or flips upsidedown. Also thats something that takes a while to figure out cause i fear we won't be able to add the buggie in the game.

So far City 17 is doing great and so is G E A R.

Oct 14,2006 - Kevin

Hello all, I appreciate the warm welcome and look forward to seeing this game progress. Although the ongoing SFv2.0 development takes most of my time I'm glad that there's always something to work on when I get the time free. I must say that you guys have done a fantastic job so far and I hope that my addition to the team doesn't come as much as an obtrusion that I feel it may have been. I'm really hoping that we can keep the quality of this mod high and perhaps eventually find a way to spread the news and get some excitement garnered for this idea which has such potential. Today I shared my first real contribution with Cory and he's allready gotten started on the plan. I went over some of my cruddy drawings (example here: http://www.sigstorage.net/uploads/c17_aftertrainstation.jpg%7Cthumb%7Cleft%7C250px ) and we talked about the level after the trainstation. Didn't get very far in the scheme of things but definetly gave Cory enough to keep him busy for a while. I'm currently working on the GEAR logo due to the personal distaste I had for the current one, hopefully the team will like the results I've got and will entrust me to go ahead and prepare the logo for the mod itself. I tend to contribute random spurts of 2d art wherever I can and people hopefully will find some of my work in the launcher screen of C17 much like what happened for various sections of Sourceforts 1.9.2. Well I'll leave with one of my samples of the GEAR logo so goodnight and audios for now. Warning, MEGA huge image: http://www.sigstorage.net/uploads/gearlgoocopy.png%7Cthumb%7Cleft%7C200px

Oct 14,2006 - Cory

We have moved on to the ep 2 area finnaly and now have somepretty good designs from Kevin which is great this makes all for a really great Mine underground type of level. Train crash then player gets stuck in here and has to go through the Mine shaft which will be about 30 mins or more of gameplay. The main idea currenly is to use most of the sketches for a opening level into the vast EP 2 Forest area. This works really great and its gona be fun to make.

Oct 18,2006 - Cory

Well i hate errors thats for sure! We had the demo all ready to go and whatnot but now i have to fix two maps. the trainstation and also the parking garage. The parking garage i can fix but there is some strange error with the trainstation map. It says no Vis information all though my entire skybox is properly sealed. I made a new skybox and it did the same thing. After a while i notice that the compile log says it could not red the prt.file. So im gonna copy the map to a whole new VMF. and see if that works. I figured that the file could be corrupt and thats a huge problem but i will se whati can do.

Oct 21,2006 - Cory

I dont want to seem lazy but i havent got around to the trainstation yet. Ive been working on the parking garage. Also i think we mightget an interview with a cettain somethong in a while. Turns out somebody wants to interview the team and see what th MOD is all about.

Also we've been think about some of the EP 2 area and a bit of the EP 3 area as well but who knows what EP3 is going to be so we will wait for that one but till then i hope i can get around to the trainsattion map and see whats really wrong with it.